Destined (40 page)

I stepped behind Grandma then, staying in the center of the circle, and looked to Thanatos for my next move.

From the spellwork basket the High Priestess took a long box of wooden matches. She lifted the bag of salt and told me, “You may leave your candle on the altar. Your grandmother serves as keeper of the spirit until you evoke your element.”

I put the candle in the middle of the little circle Grandma had made of the things we’d each given her. I bent and kissed her soft cheek. “No matter what we see tonight, remember that I love you and that we still have each other,” I said.

Grandma hugged me and I thought she was going to kiss my cheek. Instead she whispered, “
U-we-tsi-a-ge-ya
, beware. I feel eyes watching from the shadows.”

Before I could say anything, Thanatos was giving me the matches as well as my final instructions. “I will stay to your left so that you lead the physical casting of the circle, but as we approach each element I will call it. The reveal spell is woven within the elemental call. As we move around the circle I will bind the spell with salt and, if she listens, invoke Death.” Thanatos raised her voice, directing her words to my waiting friends. “With a circle this strong I would expect quite a tangible response to my invocation. Prepare yourselves, and remember, this ritual is not something done to you, but rather done with you.” Then she lifted her hands and intoned, “
Let us begin as we intend to end—we seek the truth so that this land, these people, can mend.”

Together Thanatos and I walked to Damien who was clutching his yellow candle with both hands and looking as nervous as I felt.

All right, here we go,
I thought.
Please help me, Nyx. I can’t do this without you.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Neferet

The shadows were agitated. Something was very wrong.

“Read the next chapter in your sociology book. I have business to which I must attend.” Neferet snapped the command to her very surprised-looking fifth hour students before hurrying from the classroom. She cloaked herself in mist and darkness so that prying eyes and all too curious professors would not witness her passage as she hurried to her private chamber. There she quickly slashed her hand. Cupping her palm she held it out in offering. “Drink! Tell me what is amiss!”

The tendrils of Darkness swarmed her blood, latching onto her leach-like. As they fed, whispered words from many different voices filled her mind.

The vessel does nothing to hinder earth

Joined with spirit the death vision will be given rebirth

“What?” Anger filled Neferet. “Is Aurox not there? Was he too stupid to find the farm?”

The vessel is there

He watches without care

“Force him to act! Make him stop the damn ritual!” The tendril voices all babbled at once, forming a stew of confusion in her mind. She closed her palm and slapped them away. “Do as I command! You’ve had your blood.”

The myriad of whispering voices were abruptly cut off as the specter of the white bull materialized in the middle of her chamber. The image was transparent and not fully formed, but his voice, powerful and obviously irritated, blasted through her mind.
I have told you before your sacrifice must be equal to the command!

With an effort, Neferet stifled her own anger and, with soft, placating words she spoke to the ghostly apparation, “But the vessel was a gift from you. Why would it take a great sacrifice to control a creature created from Darkness? I don’t even understand why he is deviating from my command.”

I warned you at his creation that the sacrifice used to form him was not perfect and so the vessel would be flawed.

“Well, I can tell you that recently I’ve begun to doubt his intelligence.”

It could be he is thinking for himself rather than not at all.

“So, he’s lazy? I gave him a task and he’s doing nothing!” Neferet paused, controlled her temper, and then sighed dramatically. “It isn’t that I mind so much for myself, but it seems disrespectful to you.”

Ah, my heartless one, it touches me that your concern is on my behalf. Perhaps the vessel does need prompting.

“If you prompt him, you would have my thanks.” Neferet curtseyed deeply to the apparition.

For you, my threads will force his actions. Still, they require an appropriate sacrifice.

Trying not to sound as annoyed as she felt, Neferet said, “Very well. What sacrifice do they require?”

The vessel is a beast, thus a beast must be sacrificed to control it.

“A beast? A Raven Mocker?”

No, the sacrifice must be a creature allied with you.

Neferet felt ill. “Skylar? I must sacrifice my cat?”

If it troubles you so, choose another. There are many felines about this place, are there not …

With those words, the specter of the white bull wavered and then dissipated. With a look of cold determination, Neferet took the razor-edged athame from her dresser, opened the door to her chamber, and began summoning the perfect sacrifice. It would not be Skylar—he was not a Warrior’s cat. His death wouldn’t be imbued with the appropriate violence. No, there was only one feline whose death would suit this need. Cloaked in mist and shadow, Neferet glided into the night …

Zoey

“Come air, sweet, soft touch of Nyx breath divine.”

From the very first sentence of Thanatos’s spell, I knew that this wasn’t going to be like any circle I’d ever before experienced. First of all, the High Priestess’s voice had changed. It wasn’t that she shouted or anything like that, but there was something about the singsong cadence of the spell that lent power to her voice so that her words seemed to be alive and surrounding us. As she continued to speak that power bled out into the space around us. It sizzled across my skin and down my body. I could see Damien’s gooseflesh raised on his arms, and I knew the others were being affected by it, too.

“Blow from this place concealing shadows past

It is death’s shade to view we do incline

Death revealed through this circle spell we cast.”

With a flourish of her hands Thanatos gestured for Damien to lift his candle. The Priestess nodded at me and I struck the match, lit the wick, and said, “Air, please join our circle.”

There was a mighty
whoosh!
and whipping wind swirled around us, lifting my hair and making Thanatos’s cloak billow.

“To fire,” she told me, and I walked doceil or clockwise to Shaunee. Her brown eyes were big and round, and she was staring behind us. Remembering Grandma’s warning, I glanced back and gasped in astonishment. A glowing length of scarlet light snaked from Damien, outlining the circle and tracing our path from him to Shaunee.

I was used to the silver thread that often appeared when I cast a circle, but this was different. Yeah, it was powerful, but it also felt ominous. I didn’t know if Thanatos saw it or not; I didn’t know if it was a good or bad sign that it was there, but I didn’t want to interrupt the High Priestess’s spell as she was already beginning the fire invocation.

“Come fire, your blaze must be strong, sure, and true

Strike, burn, destroy what would prevent our sight

Force violent death revealed to us anew

Your illumating flame expose with truth’s light.”

At her gesture, Shaunee lifted the red candle and I lit it saying, “Fire, please join our circle.”

It was as if we were suddenly standing inside an inferno. Flames shot from Shaunee’s body, filling the already charred circle, but this fire didn’t add to the destruction. Instead I heard a massive hissing and from everywhere that had been dead and blighted mist lifted, as if fire had met ice and not earth.

Then air joined fire and the flames and mist flew up into the sky to streak and flash.

“Lightning.” Shaunee’s voice sounded hushed and awed. “Air mixed with fire is making lightning.”

“To water,” Thanatos said.

The thick rope of glowing scarlet followed us.

When we stopped in front of Erin I thought she looked scared, but she nodded and said, “Bring it on. I’m ready.”

Thanatos spoke:

“Come water, flow throughout this circle space

With tide of truth wash clear sight-stealing time

Allowing us to see death’s tear-streaked face

Violence cleansed sets us free of evil’s grime.”

Erin lifted the candle to meet my match as I said, “Water, please join our circle.”

There was a roar as if we’d suddenly been transported into the middle of a waterfall. The night turned brilliant shades of blue and turquoise and sapphire—all the colors of water. The element gushed into the blackened circle. Water swirled around like an angry whirlpool and then, just like air and fire, it gushed straight up into the lightning-streaked sky. Clouds billowed and roiled—thunder clapped, growling with such fierceness that I cringed.

“No,” Erin said quickly. “Water’s not mad at us.”

“Neither is fire,” Shaunee said.

“Nor wind,” Damien added.

“The elements are outraged at the act that was committed here,” Thanatos said. “Prepare yourself, circle. We move to earth.”

With thunderclouds multiplying above us and lightning illuminating the gathering storm, I moved to stand in front of Stevie Rae.

“Time to cowboy up,” she said.

Thanatos nodded and spoke the earth invocation:

“Come earth, rich, verdant truly Goddess blessed

Your bosom nurtures and keeps this spell’s key

Open here and dark death will be confessed

For the wound in your heart, justice we’ll see.”

Stevie Rae lifted the green candle to my flame. “Earth, please join our circle.”

The ground beneath our feet began shaking as if we were standing in the middle of an earthquake. I couldn’t help the little shriek that slipped from my mouth.

“Zoey!” Stark yelled. I could see him staggering, trying to reach the circle, which was now completely ringed with a thick rope of red.

“Wait, it’s okay!” Stevie Rae shouted above the cacophony of angry elements. “Like the other element, earth isn’t mad at us. It’s not gonna hurt us. Look, it’s making the ground new.”

I looked down and saw that she was right. The ground that had been washed clean by water had shifted, rolled, until instead of ashes and the remnants of blighted plants, the rich red Oklahoma earth lay newly exposed.

“See, it’s being made right,” Stevie Rae said. As she spoke, the tremors gentled and then stopped completely.

“We must finish the circle and the spell,” Thanatos said. “Call spirit, Zoey. Now.”

Aurox

From his hidden place within the orchard Aurox watched the glowing scarlet circle form. Its power was awe-inspiring; the might of the elements was incredible to behold. He could feel the emotions air, fire, water, and earth evoked in the fledglings and vampyre who embodied them. Joy and courage and righteous indignation filled the circle and boiled over to wash through him.

Aurox could use the energy to change—to morph into the creature that would emerge from him, attack Rephaim as had been his command from Neferet, and most certainly disrupt the spell the High Priestess had almost fully cast.

He stared at Zoey. Radiant, she turned to the old woman who sat in the middle of the circle. Aurox knew once Thanatos evoked the final element, spirit, and Zoey lit the purple candle, the circle would be complete and the reveal spell would be set fully into motion.

If it was going to be stopped he had to act now.

He stood, warring with himself.

I was created to serve Neferet. She serves Darkness.

Before him the elemental Light of the Goddess glistened and expanded, so clean and bright, especially compared to what had been soiled by Darkness and destruction.

I should not stop this!
Deep within him his spirit was crying out for him not to hinder. Instead to wait, to bear witness, to—

Pain exploded through Aurox as tendrils of Darkness whipped around him. Thick and sticky they spread, web-like, across his body. Aurox gasped as his skin began absorbing things, melting into the creature that rested within him, and awakening it. Helpless to stop himself, Aurox felt the bull emerge. The creature took control of his body.
I knew only one thing, Neferet’s last command: attack Rephaim.
Head lowered, glistening, deadly horns fully formed, Aurox charged Rephaim.

Zoey

Thanatos and I moved slowly and carefully to stand before Grandma, who was sitting, unharmed, in the center of the elemental tumult. Her face was pale, but her hands were completely steady as she lifted the purple candle.

Thanatos began the spirit invocation:

“Come spirit, faithful, eternal and wise

Sealed with salt we ask the truth to reveal

Lost years, wasted tears you felt Linda’s cries

Darkness be gone! Spirit’s strength we shall feel.”

I was striking the match to light the purple candle when Stevie Rae’s shout disrupted everything.

“Rephaim! Look out!”

I glanced up in time to see Dragon Lankford burst out of the shadows. Sword upraised, he was sprinting toward Rephaim.

“Trust me!” Dragon yelled. “Get down!”

“No!” Stevie Rae screamed.

Rephaim didn’t hesitate. Not even for an instant. He dropped to his knees as if he was sacrificing himself to Dragon’s sword. I wanted to puke. I heard Aphrodite shriek something about
I told you so!
but I couldn’t look at her. I was absolutely sure the Sword Master was going to cut the boy in two. I couldn’t stop staring at the train wreck that was happening to Rephaim.

Dragon leaped over Rephaim’s kneeling body and with a terrible screeching sound his sword collided with the razor edge of the bull-like creature’s horns. At the last moment he managed to deflect the deathblow from Rephaim, but the creature’s momentum was too much—his body was too powerful. Not even Dragon could stop the impact. Rephaim disappeared, not gored but knocked aside with such force that he was airborne for what seemed like ages, and when he finally landed it was far from our circle and he did not move.